How to Become a Video Game Tester

Managing to actually become a video game tester is actually fantastic. You’ll be playing all the newest games (even before they hit shelves!) and you’ll be getting paid while you’re at it! Doesn’t it found absolutely fantastic? It is, but there’s still one last question in your mind for sure. If you want to start a career, even as a video game tester career, you need wonder how much you’ll get paid. Why would you go and jump in a video game testing career if you would be getting really underpaid it could be unworthy all the work you actually need to go through to land that job.

A video game testing job usually has a salary that can range at about 15 to 20 thousand dollars per year up to a whooping 80 to 100 thousand (and more!) per year. Of course that the money that comes from a game testing job is completely up to personal effort, how many game testing jobs one actually manages to get, the amount of money that the developers are willing to pay and other factors. Since most game testers are working on a daily basis and not on a contractual salary, we’ll be breaking it down into hourly and weekly figures.

The hourly pay of a video game tester is very up to the developer along with the level of experience of the game tester. It can range from (typically) $8 to $20. Just for the sake of doing some math, let’s consider a video game tester that at a mid-level which is probably making hourly figures of around $15. Yeah, and that’s not hard to reach after the right level of experience. Considering a regular 40 hour of work week, which is what typically a video game tester would have to work to meet the deadlines that the game developers demand, being paid $15 per hour, you’ll be getting a fantastic weekly paycheck of $600! Now things are sounding better, right? And you’d be getting it while getting to play your favorite video games. I’m sure that as a gamer that would be absolutely an amazing deal! And of course you can always work some extra hours if you need some more cash.

The problem here is that you will not be getting a job for a lifetime and so until you get to work on top video game developers you won’t be getting regular jobs and so you’ll need to get to keep on looking for more and more game testing jobs. That can be quite difficult unless you know where to find them and how to get them more easily. And if you’re planning to do it on your own, manually finding those jobs and going to endless interviews, it’s up to you, but there’s a much easier option.

Getting a guide on how to become a video game tester will give you all the information you need about all the game job openings as well as the best methods to unsure you’re actually landing those game testing jobs successfully.

If you’re in this website then you probably want to know how to become a video game tester. One of the best things about a game testing job is that after you start getting to be known by companies, you’ll increasingly be paid more and you’ll be given the best jobs in the market. Your opinion and feedback will be more important than ever and more than just finding bugs and glitches.

Let’s take a look 3 very easy (but extremely important) tips that you absolutely must know in order to even think about getting on the road on how to become a video game tester. You’ll be surprised at how simple and obvious some of them sound, but bear in mind, they’re extremely important if you want to succeed.

1 – Improve your reading, writing and oral communication skills. This is never enough, never settle with the way you are. You need to be able to communicate with developers in a way they easily understand what the problem is. The job will require you to write complete reports about every single aspect in the game, so if you’re already experienced when communicating, it’s a big plus for your chances of getting hired.

2 – Unfortunately, there are still a great number of scammers that are trying to get you to buy their shady programs that promise you a very high paying job in little time. We only recommend the absolute best products in the market and more importantly, the ones we actually tested, to make sure you would get the best information possible. Don’t get robbed by these scammers and don’t buy from shady websites as those are usually the scamming ones.

3 – If you’re really short on cash (even though we believe paying the price from the programs we are recommending isn’t anything compared with what you’ll be getting) you can manually check for job openings on the gaming companies. It’s not as effective as using our sources, but it’s indeed cheaper. A great number of gaming companies are using third party job centers specialized in game testing, so if you’re going there unprepared (and especially as it’s a very competitive market) your chances are greatly reduced. Knowing the questions that will be asked to you is a great way of getting ahead of the competition, and something that is part of the Become a Game Tester guide we have already mentioned.

A job as a video game tester is certainly not an easy one. Treating it like it’s a side gig won’t lead you anywhere. You need to fulfill every single aspect the gaming company you’re working for wants to make sure you’re hired again. Once landing your game testing job, you’ll want to start getting everything right. You’ll need to be able to write detailed reports to make it much easier for the developers. This will make you look like a true professional and that will get you to land more game testing jobs and be offered more money. Let’s take a look at some important aspects after landing your game testing job.

First of all, you really must read everything sent to you about the game. It’ll tell you how the game is going to be and let you test the game knowing what the target audience is. The game developers will surely appreciate you giving them feedback as how the game is when compared to the information that you were given about it. Along with the game to test and the instructions, you’ll be given a deadline to finish up your report as well as a standard format to submit your evaluation.

Then you must remember that you are not playing for fun. It’s a game testing job, and so you’ll need to do more than just playing the game as you would normally do. You’ll need to test every single feature of the game, every single character, and try to do things that you believe the game isn’t ready to respond. Look for things that are out of place, bugs you find along the way, levels that just aren’t right, impossible jumps that are possible and areas that you didn’t think were possible to reach but resulted in a bug or glitch of some sort.

When you’re testing you need to learn that you absolutely must take note at every single thing you do in the game. Your job is to let developers know what works and what doesn’t work for you. Be very specific in your reports as developers may need to replicate the exact steps you took to get that bug or glitch happen again. If you’re giving more work for the developer than you’re helping them they will let you go and won’t hire you for any more game testing jobs.

There are two types of bugs: the ones you can replicate and the ones which are completely random. Some specific actions on certain parts of the scenario will trigger bugs that the developers would easily miss. You need to let them know which location, character, items and the exact steps you took to let programmers actually recreate the bug in order to fix it. But your game testing duties don’t stop on big bugs. If you find certain textures out of place, misspelling or any sound or music errors you need to let them know. Think of it as your own creation: you’ll want it to be perfect, right?

This last part is up to whether you actually have the time to do it or not. If there’s still a good amount of time before the headline you should try and play the game again to make sure that you didn’t miss anything along the way. With big games having the chance of doing that is impossible, but if you can, it’s a great way of getting a more detailed report. As you’re writing your final report you must make sure that you are using up every single piece of information you took on your play through. On each area try to go from the major bugs to smaller ones as developers would prefer to start focusing on the bigger problems.

If you follow these guidelines you’re sure to have everything it takes to actually know how to be a world class video game tester. Sure, it’s quite a bit of work but if your love is playing video games then this shouldn’t really be a problem. The main issue people usually find is getting those video game testing jobs. So, get the best help on how to become a video game tester and get your first game testing job faster than ever.

A video game testing career can be something you do as a full time or part time job. Not many people can say that they are happy doing what they’re doing, that they wake up wanting to get to work. But if you do love video games, then becoming a video game tester and getting a job in the area could be exactly what you’re looking for. And you can make some great money off of it as well!

Video game testing jobs are very limited in quantity and because of that, it will take you some work to actually go and find one. It’ll be extremely hard to get companies calling you to be a game tester, so if you’re not in a mindset where you won’t stop at nothing until you reach that goal, you should stop and look for other options. Getting a game testing job is very different as there are specialized companies that are hiring for the game companies. One major focal point is that you’ll need to reach these companies and provide them enough information to make them want to hire you.

These game testing jobs are limited because of the sheer amount of people looking to get them, so getting the edge over all of the competition is a must. You need to be determined and be ready to accept a few no’s. You need to always be looking for ways to get into the companies as getting hired to test another game after you already gained a certain level of experience is much easier.

Oh, and make sure you just don’t share the information with the rest of the world. It’s already a very competitive market and getting more people knowing what they should do will only result in a much harder task for you to find more jobs.

Be persistent, use the resources you have available and you’ll surely succeed. Get the best guide on how to become a video game tester and get the extra boost you needed.